


Keep Going

by HalfASlug



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 09:44:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10241846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfASlug/pseuds/HalfASlug
Summary: Hitting rock bottom was a matter of perspective.





	

Hitting rock bottom was a matter of perspective.

Some people reached that point and shattered.

Ellie Miller took the challenge and grabbed a spade, determined to see the daylight on the other side.

She argued that she didn’t have a choice. Her boys needed her, after all. During the worst days though, she  _ almost _ accepted there was another option. The idea of lying down and never getting up was tempting for all of three seconds before she found her grit once more.

_ He couldn’t win. He would not win. _

She hadn’t so much stuck, but bolted her courage to the sticking place like a warning on Traitor’s Gate. Life had thrown its toughest at her and she was still there, standing on two feet and ready to battle for every scrap she could.

Truth be told, it was exhausting, but that was easy enough to hide from the outside world.

Most of it, anyway.

Alec Hardy was already digging when she met him, though she hadn’t realised it at the time. It turned out she couldn’t bullshit a bullshitter. Nothing pissed her off more.

Together, they made it. One broke ground on the other side and dragged the other through. They stood in the blinding light of a new day, shook hands and parted ways.

It wasn’t until he was out of sight that she worried that maybe - just  _ maybe _ \- she had taken the wrong turning.

One day, sleep deprived and stressed, fuming after an argument with him about a case that was driving both of them back under, she finally asked outright the question she had been tripping over for months.

“Why did you come back?”

Her tone, no longer tearing, but tired, caught him by surprise. She watched him teeter on the edge of a decision, too scared yet incredibly eager to push him.

“I don’t think I was supposed to leave.”

His shrug was apologetic and embarrassed and she understood. When your only aim was to keep going, it was difficult to concentrate on which way you were heading. She knew that.

Once out of the hole that you had found yourself in and you had regained your equilibrium, however, it could also become startlingly obvious.

Ellie Miller rose up, kissed him and hoped she never had to fall down again.


End file.
